On the Estate of Hagnias (20-24)

My opponent, thinking nothing of telling any lie whatever and considering that his own rascality does him no harm, dares to utter many calumnies against me, with which I will deal presently. In particular, he now alleges that Stratocles and I made a compact, when we were about to engage in the suit about the inheritance, though of those who had prepared to put in a claim we were the only persons for whom such a mutual agreement was impossible.

The daughter of Eubulides and the mother of Hagnias, in an action against me, since they were not claiming on the same grounds, might have made an agreement, that if one of them were successful, she should give a share to the defeated claimant; for the votes accorded to each of them would be placed in different urns. But with us it was quite otherwise; we stood in the same relationship and were making two separate claims, each to have half the estate; and when two claimants found their claims on the same grounds, only one voting urn is employed, so that it would be impossible for one to be unsuccessful and the other successful, but we both ran the same risk, so we could not possibly have made any compact or agreement about the inheritance.

But when Stratocles died before the actions claiming half the estate, which we were each bringing, could come on, and so there was no further question of his participating in the estate, nor had this child of his any title owing to the law, but the whole inheritance devolved upon me as next-of-kin, if I could defeat those who are now in possession, then and not till then does my opponent devise and invent these fictions, expecting easily to mislead you by these stories. That no such compact was possible but that all the details of procedure are already provided for, can easily be seen from the law. Please take and read it to the court.

Law

Does it appear to you that the law gives any liberty for a concerted arrangement? Or are not its provisions in an exactly contrary sense, since, even if a previous arrangement existed, it expressly ordains that each party shall bring an action for his own share, and prescribes a single voting-urn, when the two parties base their claims on the same ground, and makes this the system of adjudication? But my opponent, in spite of these legal provisions and the impossibility of a preconcerted arrangement, has had the impudence to invent this lie against all common sense.

But he has not stopped there; he has also invented the most inconsistent story possible, to which, gentlemen, please give your close attention. He declares that I agreed, if I won my case against the present possessors of the estate, to give the child a half-share of the inheritance. Yet if the child had any right to a share in virtue of his relationship, as my opponent declares, what need was there for this agreement between me and them? For the half of the estate was adjudicable to them just as much as to me, if what they say is true.